Written by Econintersect
Early Bird Headlines 13 July 2018
Econintersect: Here are some of the headlines we found to help you start your day. For more headlines see our afternoon feature for GEI members, What We Read Today, published Monday, Wednesday and Friday, which has many more headlines and a number of article discussions to keep you abreast of what we have found interesting.
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​Global
- Asian stocks extend gains amid relief over lack of trade escalation (CNBC) Asian shares closed higher on Friday, extending gains after Wall Street rebounded as technology stocks there touched all-time highs. There was also some relief coming from the lack of escalation in trade tensions between the U.S. and China. The dollar index was higher at 95.049. Brent crude eased $0.36 (0.5%) to $74.09 by 0326 GMT. On Thursday it gained $1.05 a barrel, rebounding from a session low of $72.67. It is heading for a weekly fall of nearly 4%. U.S. crude dipped $0.04 to $70.29, after a five cent decline in the previous session. It is heading for a weekly decline of nearly 5%. Spot gold was down about 0.1% at $1,246.11 an ounce at 0050 GMT.
U.S.
- 5 takeaways from wild hearing with controversial FBI agent (The Hill) Peter Strzok on Thursday faced a fierce public grilling from House Republicans who view the controversial FBI counterintelligence agent as the key to exposing what they say was systemic bias by top government officials against Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign. Five takeaways:
- One of the wildest hearings in recent memory
- Questioning turned personal, prompting outrage
- Strzok hit back at Republicans
- There are some things Strzok won’t talk about
- There’s more to come with Lisa Page
- Republicans Thought Peter Strzok Would Be a Punching Bag. He Just Knocked Them Out. (The Daily Beast) This Op Ed:
Those who forget the lessons of televised congressional hearings are doomed to repeat them, which is why the morning segment of the Capitol Hill show trial of veteran FBI agent and former head of the Bureau’s Counterespionage division Peter Strzok turned into a disaster for Republicans.
- Complete exchange between Rep. Trey Gowdy and FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok (C-Span, YouTube)
- Louie Gohmert vs FBI Peter Strzok EXPLOSIVE Exchange at Congress Hearing about anti-Trump Texts (YouTube)
- In Andrew Wheeler, Trump Gets a Cannier E.P.A. Chief (The New Yorker) The new head of the EPA is an outspoken fossil fuel supporter (coal lobbyist) and likely to be much more effective than Scott pruitt, whom he replaced. From this article:
What the two men share are close ties to the fossil-fuel industry, a long record of working in opposition to environmental regulations, and a desire, with Trump, to destroy Obama’s climate-policy legacy. Wheeler, however, will likely be more effective in implementing Trump’s agenda. Pruitt’s fast and dirty efforts to roll back E.P.A. rules, with little concern for governmental procedure, left his efforts open to legal challenges; six have already been struck down in court. Wheeler might be slower to make changes, but many fear that his new rules are more likely to last.
- Trump’s Tariffs Are Hurting U.S. Competitiveness (Council on Foreign Relations) This article starts:
President Trump says that America running a trade deficit means that “jobs and wealth are being given to other countries.” As we explained in Business Insider earlier this month, this statement is logically and historically false. The left-hand figure above shows that the relationship between trade deficits and growth in the United States, going back nearly 30 years, is the opposite. Rising growth tends to increase imports through higher consumption. The imports have not meant that “jobs and wealth are being given to other countries”: they have been a sign of a strong U.S. economy.
UK
- Brexiteers furious over concessions in Theresa May’s ‘yellow paper’ (The Times) Theresa May could suffer the defeat of a crucial Brexit bill as early as Monday after Eurosceptics reacted angrily to the white paper she published yesterday. Relations between Conservative MPs who support a hard Brexit and No 10 worsened after the publication of the 98-page document, which spelt out a series of detailed compromises.
In what Brexiteers argue is a breach of red lines, the white paper said that disputes over trade should be “referred to the European Court of Justice for interpretation” in certain circumstances, and that businesses that provide services would be able to “move their talented people” across the Channel.
- Britain’s Brexit plan revealed: experts react (The Conversation) Five academics in poliical science and public policy offer their opinions on PM Theresa May’s new Brexit proposal.
- In explosive interview, Trump says Theresa May’s Brexit plan will ‘kill’ a US-UK trade deal (Business Insider)
- President Donald Trump has said British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plans will “probably kill” any US-UK trade deal.
- The US president made an explosive intervention into British politics in an interview with The Sun published Thursday.
- His remarks seem certain to cause political chaos in the UK and could imperil the prime minister’s leadership.
- Donald Trump hails Boris Johnson as future PM and attacks Sadiq Khan (The Guardian) Donald Trump hailed Boris Johnson as a future prime minister, accused the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, of doing “a bad job” on terrorism and said there had been too much immigration in Europe in an incendiary interview that raised questions about the decision to invite him to Britain.
A day before the US president was due to have bilateral talks with Theresa May, Trump used an interview with the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sun to endorse her principal Tory rival just days after he resigned from the cabinet in protest at her Brexit policy.
- Two thirds of voters baffled by Theresa May’s Brexit policy, YouGov poll shows (The Times) Sixty-nine per cent now say that the Tory policy on Brexit is confusing, according to the survey carried out on Tuesday and Wednesday, up 11 points from June. It means that more people are now confused by the government’s plans than those of the Labour Party (64 per cent), after months of ministers mocking Jeremy Corbyn’s position as contradictory and unworkable.
Spain
- Spain launches truth commission to probe Franco-era crimes (The Guardian) Spain’s new government has announced plans to establish a truth commission to investigate crimes against humanity committed by the regime of the former military dictator Francisco Franco, more than 40 years after his death. Under a new law of historical memory, the criminal records of those convicted for opposing the regime will be wiped and organisations that venerate the memory of the dictator, such as the Fundación Francisco Franco, will also be outlawed. A planned census of civil war and dictatorship victims aims to help families trace relatives.
Russia
- President Donald Trump may ask Russian President Vladimir Putin for help on denuclearizing North Korea when the two leaders meet on Monday.
- Moscow has tangible interests on the Korean Peninsula and stands to gain from a greater presence in the region.
India
- India adopts ‘world’s strongest’ net neutrality norms (BBC News) India has adopted recommendations strongly backing net neutrality that experts say could be the “strongest” in the world. Net neutrality means service providers must treat all traffic equally, and not charge differently based on content. The recommendations explicitly forbid operators from throttling data speeds for any online service, and mandates all content be treated the same. India is expected to have 500 million internet users by June.
- ‘A better life’: India moves a step closer to legalising gay sex (The Guardian) Under Indian law dating back to 1861 gay sex is a crime punishable by a 10-year prison sentence. On Wednesday, the 20-year-old legal battle to legalise gay sex received a boost when the government told judges that the decision was up to them and it will not contest the petitions.
China
- New tariffs threatened by the US would be more harmful to China than the first batch, says bank CEO (CNBC)
- The proposed U.S. tariffs on an additional $200 billion in Chinese goods, if implemented, could harm the world’s second-largest economy, said Piyush Gupta, CEO of Singapore’s DBS Bank.
- That’s because the targeted Chinese goods include a greater number of finished products, which can be replaced by similar ones from other sources, he said.